Backed by measured words of support from President Bush, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert opened an intense drive on Tuesday to hold on to his post, but behind the scenes senior Republicans weighed whether he could survive the scandal surrounding former Representative Mark Foley.*Mr. Hastert, who stayed on as speaker after 2004 at the urging of Mr. Bush, has been involved in some of the discussions about how to proceed, but it was not clear how seriously he was considering not seeking the speakership next year, said the Republicans, who asked not to be named because they were discussing internal deliberations. Mr. Hastert returned home to Illinois on Tuesday.

Eight United States soldiers were killed Monday in Baghdad, the United States military said, the most in the capital in a day since July 2005.Four of the soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack; the four others were killed by small-arms fire in separate incidents.Monday’s loss also represented one of the highest nationwide death tolls for American troops in the past year. In late August, nine soldiers and a marine were killed in a day. But before that, the last time eight or more soldiers were killed in hostile action was last November.“Obviously this was a tragic day, with eight killed in 24 hours,” said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman.

Obviously.

And, in an effort to show how much fun the survivors are having in Iraq, there's this story:

Word spread quickly: A Marine search dog had escaped and was roaming the streets attacking children. But the Marines didn't have any dogs in Haditha at the time.Nevertheless, Marines found themselves having to quash yet another of the baseless rumors that often sweep this city of about 50,000 people, most of them Sunni Arabs wary of U.S. intentions in Iraq.Rumors — most of them maligning U.S. troops — are a staple of life in the embattled, isolated cities of Anbar province, a region that is a center of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and where telephones don't work and newspapers rarely appear.Many residents are afraid to visit other parts of the country such as Baghdad, 140 miles to the southeast, for fear they'll run afoul of Shiite death squads. In their isolation, most people rely on Arab television networks such as Al-Jazeera for news of the outside world. For local news, the main medium is word of mouth.No one is sure how the dog rumor started but soon terrified people were complaining to tribal leaders about a violent animal on the loose. The director of the city hospital even told reporters that seven children had been bitten.The Americans must be to blame, many people concluded.